Jan Brueghelthe Elder was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was the son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. A close friend and frequent collaborator with Peter Paul Rubens, the two artists were the leading Flemish painters in the first three decades of the 17th century.
Jacob (Jacques) Jordaens was a Flemish painter, draughtsman and a designer of tapestries and prints. He was a prolific artist who created biblical, mythological, and allegorical compositions, genre scenes, landscapes, illustrations of Flemish sayings and portraits. After the death of Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, he became the leading Flemish Baroque painter of his time. Unlike those illustrious contemporaries he never travelled abroad to study the Antique and Italian painting and, except for a few short trips to locations elsewhere in the Low Countries, he resided in Antwerp his entire life. He also remained largely indifferent to Rubens and van Dyck's intellectual and courtly aspirations. This attitude was expressed in his art through a lack of idealistic treatment which contrasted with that of these contemporaries.
Cupid and Psyche is a story originally from Metamorphoses, written in the 2nd century AD by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis. The tale concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyche and Cupid or Amor, and their ultimate union in a sacred marriage. Although the only extended narrative from antiquity is that of Apuleius from 2nd century AD, Eros and Psyche appear in Greek art as early as the 4th century BC. The story's Neoplatonic elements and allusions to mystery religions accommodate multiple interpretations, and it has been analyzed as an allegory and in light of folktale, Märchen or fairy tale, and myth.
Hendrick van Balen or Hendrick van Balen I was a Flemish Baroque painter and stained glass designer. Hendrick van Balen specialised in small cabinet pictures often painted on a copper support. His favourite themes were mythological and allegorical scenes and, to a lesser extent, religious subjects. The artist played an important role in the renewal of Flemish painting in the early 17th century and was one of the teachers of Anthony van Dyck.
Bacchus and Ariadne (1522–1523) is an oil painting by Titian. It is one of a cycle of paintings on mythological subjects produced for Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d'Alabastro – a private room in his palazzo in Ferrara decorated with paintings based on classical texts. An advance payment was given to Raphael, who originally held the commission for the subject of a Triumph of Bacchus.
Joachim Anthoniszoon Wtewael was a Dutch Mannerist painter and draughtsman, as well as a highly successful flax merchant, and town councillor of Utrecht. Wtewael was one of the leading Dutch exponents of Northern Mannerism, and his distinctive and attractive style remained largely untouched by the naturalistic developments happening around him, "characterized by masterfully drawn, highly polished figures often set in capricious poses". Wtewael was trained in the style of late 16th-century Haarlem Mannerism and remained essentially faithful to it, despite painting well into the early period of Dutch Golden Age painting.
The François Vase is a large Attic volute krater decorated in the black-figure style. It stands at 66 cm in height and was inspired by earlier bronze vases. It was used for wine. A milestone in the development of ancient Greek pottery due to the drawing style used as well as the combination of related stories depicted in the numerous friezes, it is dated to circa 570/560 BCE. The François Vase was discovered in 1844 in Chiusi where an Etruscan tomb in the necropolis of Fonte Rotella was found located in central Italy. It was named after its discoverer Alessandro François, and is now in the Museo Archeologico in Florence. It remains uncertain whether the krater was used in Greece or in Etruria, and whether the handles were broken and repaired in Greece or in Etruria. The François Vase may have been made for a symposium given by a member of an aristocratic family in Solonian Athens, then broken and, after being carefully repaired, sent to Etruria, perhaps as an instance of elite-gift exchange. It bears the inscriptions Ergotimos mepoiesen and Kleitias megraphsen, meaning 'Ergotimos made me' and 'Kleitias painted me'. It depicts 270 figures, 121 of which have accompanying inscriptions. It is highly unusual for so many to be identifiable: the scenes depicted represent a number of mythological themes. In 1900 the vase was smashed into 638 pieces by a museum guard by hurling a wooden stool against the protective glass. It was later restored by Pietro Zei in 1902, followed by a second reconstruction in 1973 incorporating previously missing pieces.
The Feast of the Gods is an oil painting by the Italian Renaissance master Giovanni Bellini, with substantial additions in stages to the left and center landscape by Dosso Dossi and Titian. It is one of the few mythological pictures by the Venetian artist. Completed in 1514, it was his last major work. It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., which calls it "one of the greatest Renaissance paintings in the United States".
Flemish Baroque painting was a style of painting in the Southern Netherlands during Spanish control in the 16th and 17th centuries. The period roughly begins when the Dutch Republic was split from the Habsburg Spain regions to the south with the Spanish recapturing of Antwerp in 1585 and goes until about 1700, when Spanish Habsburg authority ended with the death of King Charles II. Antwerp, home to the prominent artists Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacob Jordaens, was the artistic nexus, while other notable cities include Brussels and Ghent.
Jan Boeckhorst or Johann Bockhorst was a German-born Flemish Baroque painter and draughtsman. He was a versatile artist who produced history paintings, genre scenes and portraits in a style influenced by the trio of leading Baroque painters in Antwerp Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens. Boeckhorst also worked as a designer of cartoons for tapestries.
Cornelis Schut was a Flemish painter, draughtsman, engraver and tapestry designer who specialized in religious and mythological scenes. Presumed to have trained under Rubens, he treated Counter-Reformation subjects in a High-Baroque style. After a stay in Italy, he worked mainly in Antwerp where he was one of the leading history painters in the first half of the 17th century.
Hendrick de Clerck was a Flemish painter active in Brussels during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Stylistically he belongs to the late Mannerist generation of artists preceding Peter Paul Rubens and the Flemish Baroque, and his paintings are very similar to his contemporary Marten de Vos. His exact date of birth is unknown, but in 1594 he is employed as court painter to Archduke Ernest, a position he continued to hold in the service of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella following Ernest's death in 1596.
Josef Anton von Gegenbaur was an accomplished German historical and portrait painter.
The Triumph of Bacchus is a painting by Diego Velázquez, now in the Museo del Prado, in Madrid. It is popularly known as Los borrachos or The Drinkers.
Jan van Balen was a Flemish painter known for his Baroque paintings of history and allegorical subjects. He also painted landscapes and genre scenes.
The Feast of Venus is an oil on canvas painting by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, created in 1635–1636, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. It is a fanciful depiction of the Roman festival Veneralia celebrated in honor of Venus Verticordia.
Merry company is the term in art history for a painting, usually from the 17th century, showing a small group of people enjoying themselves, usually seated with drinks, and often music-making. These scenes are a very common type of genre painting of the Dutch Golden Age and Flemish Baroque; it is estimated that nearly two thirds of Dutch genre scenes show people drinking.
The so-called Aldobrandini Wedding fresco is an influential Ancient Roman painting, of the second half of the 1st century BC, on display in the Vatican Museum. It depicts a wedding along with several mythological figures.
Sine Cerere et Baccho friget Venus, or Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus, is a quotation from the Roman comedian Terence that became a proverb in the Early Modern period. Its simplest level of meaning is that love needs food and wine to thrive. It was sometimes shown in art, especially in the period 1550–1630, in Northern Mannerism in Prague and the Low Countries, as well as by Rubens.
In 1635, Peter Paul Rubens created Venus and Adonis, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He followed the mythological story in the Metamorphoses by Ovid, inspired from his love of classical literature and earlier depictions of this scene. This oil on canvas painting shows Venus accompanied by Cupid, embracing and pulling Adonis before he goes off to hunt. The artist uses specific colors, detail and strong contrast between light and dark to depict a dramatic and emotional scene. At the time Rubens created the painting, the mythological story of Venus and Adonis was popular in Renaissance and Baroque court art. Rubens was clearly inspired by the many existing depictions of this scene, in particular the famous Titian composition of the same name, of which there are numerous versions. This depicts the same moment of Adonis leaving Venus to hunt, despite her pleas to stay. He is killed later in the day.
